What the Legislature has here is a failure to communicate

Speaker Pro Tempore Greg Snowden, R-Meridian, left, gestures as Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, reads from a long list of acknowledgements as the Mississippi Legislature ended its 2017 regular session Wednesday, March 29, 2017. However lawmakers will have to return later to pass budgets for the attorney general's office and the Department of Transportation.(Photo: Rogelio V. Solis, AP)

Two weeks ago, late on the Thursday before the Legislature’s Saturday deadline to set a $6 billion budget, I asked a senator about the status of the work.

He seemed a little frustrated. He said, off the record, he did not know, and that furthermore, “we haven’t even gotten our numbers yet,” referring to the amount of money they have to work with for various budgets.

I asked him if the Joint Legislative Budget Committee was going to meet on Friday to set a new, up-to-date revenue estimate, as it often does sometime before “conference weekend.” He — and numerous others, including members of the JLBC — did not know, and the leadership wouldn’t say whether such a meeting was coming.

Now this was a "full-grown" senator with around a decade in office. He’s a member of the super-majority GOP, chairman of a major committee and normally would be in the thick of budget work for major state agencies.

But he was given the same mushroom treatment the top leadership gives the vast majority of the 174-member Legislature these days. And, it would appear, the few top House and Senate leaders who do know what’s going on don’t communicate very well across the Rotunda with each other, either.

The JLBC did meet on that Friday and slashed the estimate of money lawmakers had to work with by $175 million. This, again, was the Friday afternoon before the 8 p.m. Saturday deadline to set a $6 billion budget.

That’s a heck of a way to run a railroad.

Astonishingly, the legislative leadership’s effort to set a state budget in about 24 hours went awry. A last-minute standoff between Republican House and Senate leaders over internet sales taxes and road funding killed transportation budgets, and a procedural snag killed the attorney general's budget. Lawmakers will have to come back in special session to finish their business. When might that be? For reasons I cannot fathom, that’s also a state secret not usually revealed until a few days before.

What we have here is a failure to communicate (I never pass up an opportunity to throw out a “Cool Hand Luke” reference) and a legislative process that makes as much sense as a stone boat.

Alan Lange, at Y’all Politics, recently penned: “By condensing almost the entirety of legislative appropriations and finance issues into the end of the session (over a weekend, no less), there is an enormous amount of pressure put on all things. Relative decisions on spending money between agencies or programs have to be made quickly and sometimes it’s not real smooth.”

Amen.

But this bum’s rush, hurry-up offense is being put on more and more legislative work — not just the budget, but policy and general legislation. Most committees don’t hold full-on hearings or debates anymore. They’ve become quick huddles called shortly before deadlines, during which bills are handed out, then votes are called a few minutes later. Bills aren’t so much vetted in committee as they are either passed by acclamation or not taken up at all. In at least a couple of instances this session, committee votes were held without lawmakers even having updated versions of the bills in hand.

In the House, Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, does frequently hold GOP caucus meetings. But these (which are closed) appear to be more to gauge a controversial measure's pass/fail potential more than to seek rank-and-file input. But maybe I'm wrong — they are secret, after all.

Most rank-and-file lawmakers are given info on a need-to-know basis, and apparently they don’t need to know many things until it’s time to vote. This strikes me as odd, that secrecy and timing strat-e-gery have increased even as Republicans have increased their hold on the Legislature to a super-majority. The Democratic Party is barely a going concern in state government these days. From whom is the leadership trying to keep secrets?

This secrecy and lack of communication has been most profound around the effort to rewrite the state’s adequate education funding formula. Legislative leaders hired a consultant and vowed to rewrite the formula in this year’s regular session. But for reasons that remain a secret to all but a few, it didn’t happen. It’s expected to be a major overhaul of public education funding, but — again — details remain a secret. It might be brought up in special session — whenever that might be — but legislative leaders won’t say whether they’re close to having a final agreement.

They have, in a great show of transparency and openness, said they’ll give rank-and-file lawmakers at least a couple of days to digest what could be a sea change for public education, the state budget and even local taxes.

But until then, it’s a secret. I guess you can’t let just anybody know details in advance about how the state will spend $2.4 billion in tax dollars and educate children. Not even many of those who will be asked to pass it into law.